Call it New Age Elevator Music, or Muzak or whatever by the lofi, jazz hop and chillwave thing has been helping me through some of these long days. You can’t exactly call it isolation but it feels that way sometimes. Mostly its solitude, and there is a vast difference between solitude and isolation. The latter, to me, implies desolation and loneliness. Solitude is, again to me, peace for the most part, but you’re still prone to whatever is bouncing around in your head. Like The Crocodiles say and is oft repeated, the inside of your own head can be the very worst neighborhood to wake up and find yourself in. That hasn’t been the case for me, mostly, for a long time. Yet there are days. Otherwise its been a sort of retreat for long stretches of the pandemic. The news out there, as bad as it is, can seem very distant. It’s not that it doesn’t concern me greatly, because it does, but the length of time that I’m going to be around to suffer what comes next grows shorter by the day. As I was told when they hit the front lines against the police back at the beginning of the summer, this fight is now for the young men. You may catch me out there for the next round. There is so much less to lose for those of us my age, so maybe it should be our fight. For the moment though, I’m going to sit right here and listen to this.

I’m going to take a stab at working my way out of this low-key malaise that’s overshadowed the last few weeks. It could be health related so there’s that to look into. It could just be a growing boredom, despite the sense of relative peace. Staying in one place for too long has never worked well for me. Maybe more exercise is the answer. Who knows? Something feels unsettled. It’s not a high-intensity anxious feeling. It’s a low-level buzz. It’s a desire to move. It’s… something to be worked out,

But again, for now…